


breathing isn't so hard (as long as you remember how to)

by Garecc, Gunpowderdtim (Garecc)



Series: Ready, Aim, Fire [11]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Death, Gen, Home Invasion, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, Nastya ashes and jonny are here as well just less, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Temporary Character Death, Violence, canon typical war trauma, comfort items, ie a gas mask, ig, lots of hurt not much comfort, mustard gas and novichoke huh, thats bertie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26294890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garecc/pseuds/Garecc, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garecc/pseuds/Gunpowderdtim
Summary: Tim always carries a gas mask.This has saved him on many occurrences. With the occasional intruder managing to gas the ship.But when he leaves his coat, and therefore gas mask in one of the rec rooms, and the gas starts flooding from the vents, he has no choice but to die.In other words, Tim gets gassed, and has a very bad time.
Series: Ready, Aim, Fire [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1799860
Comments: 11
Kudos: 138





	breathing isn't so hard (as long as you remember how to)

**Author's Note:**

> I! am! sad! about! Gunpowder! Tim!

Tim carried a gas mask.

Inside his coat, hanging around his neck, whatever. 

He always had one on him.

Logically, he knew it wasn't necessary. That no gas could keep him down permanently. Not even mustard gas could keep him down longer than a few days, and that was mostly due to his own terror of it.

But the feeling of his eyes and mouth burning as mustard gas floods his lungs. 

Of the novichok paralyzing his muscles and him losing control of his body.

As blisters burst in his lungs and blood rises from his chest

It was just... A bit too much.

More than a bit, really.

His lungs bursting and bleeding and he can only breathe faster and harder as panic panic panic as Jonny's hysterical deranged laughter floated through his skull as Bertie gasped as he died slowly choking on his own blood as the alarms blared and the pumps rattled broken and useless and-

It was too much.

It was too familiar.

Being gassed was a gateway to memories he couldn’t think about without sobbing so hard he couldn't breathe. And with the gas, well, he couldn't very well breathe anyway.

So Tim carried a gas mask. Because if his throat started burning, or if his lungs grew tight with panic, he could put it on. Put it on and sink to the floor and focus desperately on staying in the present.

Even if there wasn't gas, it's presence helped him convince himself he wasn't going to choke and die.

Someone had gassed them.

Someone getting on the ship and trying to kill them wasn't all that uncommon of an occurrence. The occasional bounty hunter or immortality seeker chasing after them was a rather common occurrence all things concidered.

But no one usually got all of them, typically leaving someone alive or unfound to kill the intruder and they would all move on with their lives and laugh about it once the adrenaline faded.

And even when they gas them, Tim had his gas mask and while he would be shaking a bit too hard to help much with the entire murdering bit, Ashes wasn't affected by gas, and they usually took the fucker out before any real harm was done.

But Tim had left his coat, and therefore the gas mask, in the rec room while he went to get a glass of water, as it started spilling out the vents.

He had smelled it before he felt it. Been momentarily confused, as he didn't recognize the smell. Thought someone was burning food. 

Then he felt it, a heavy, vaguely tingling feeling in his lungs. And all he had time to do before it hurt, before coughing, was try to leave the room. To hopefully run back to the rec room and get the gas mask but he _knew_ it was too far and he collapsed against the wall. 

It burned, and as he panicked he only breathed in more. 

It hurt. 

He has passed out quickly, thanks to his panic response, to breathing in so much of the gas he was almost certain it would _actually_ kill him this time. But it was hardly an easy awakening. Bound up. Someone yelling, monologuing at them. 

He couldn’t think clear enough to properly pay attention.

He glanced around at the others.

Ashes and Brian weren’t here. Which probably meant they would be in a few minutes. 

Then he noticed how stiff Nastya was sitting, and how still she was. She was _certainly_ panicking. And now as he listened and watched a bit more attentively through the haze of waking up from a panic attack death, something about their voice and demeanor was a bit reminiscent of the Doctor, and then Jonny was pissed, spitting and screaming and frothing like a rabid animal.

But that didn't get them untied.

So while they mocked Jonny, Tim just sat there. Gagged with memories swirling below the surface as time lapsed over itself.

Bertie choking. Jonny's deranged laughter. Tim choking again and again as old and broken respirators let the gas through just enough to hurt. Just enough to feel it bubbling boiling in his chest. The bloody handkerchiefs they carried.

Tim could hardly think.

The intruder was getting angry, getting frustrated.

Jonny was spitting and screaming a line of curses in more languages than Tim knew, and that, of course, got him nowhere.

The ropes dug into his wrists and ankles. (Kneeling bound at the foot of the moon Kaisers throne.) The ropes were tied the same.

Tim couldn't think. Only Bertie's bloody, glassy eyes and the splatters of blood around his mouth playing on repeat. Choking endlessly on endless mustard gas.

(The intruder was yelling, and then a shot rang out, catching them in the back as Ashes stepped in. Looking, as ever, annoyed.)

Tim couldn’t think.

Reality folding over memories. Kneeling at the foot of the moon Kaisers throne. ( _Now boy it seems you've made a habit of hacking up my boys_ ) Choking on gas. ( _Novichok and mustard gas are much too much for me_ )

Nastya and Jonny were gone seconds after Ashes cut them free. (Tim tried not to feel hurt tried not to feel abandoned. He did anyway.)

Tim processed on some level Ashes saying Brian was going to deal with the rapidly bleeding out intruder. 

Someone had cut him free, but Tim was still far too shaky to stand.

So Tim sat there. Shaking and curled over himself. Folded over his knees while Ashes cut Raph, Ivy, the Toy Soldier and Marius free. 

It wasn’t long after Ashes helped him up, helped him stand. Their arm around him the only thing keeping him from collapsing to the floor.

( _Novichok and mustard gas are much too much for me_ )

They brought him to his room, talking to him for a bit but Tim couldn’t fathom any sort of response. Couldn’t speak easily. 

He wanted his coat. But it was still in the rec room and probably was covered in the gas and he could _not_ walk that far with how unsteady his legs felt.

So soon enough they left to check on Brian, make sure he had actually gotten rid of the person. 

When Tim realized, a few minutes after Ashes left that the person hadn't been killed, he blocked off his vents in his room in a shaking fit of terror. 

He curled on his bed and tried not to drown in the memories of blistering lungs and paralyzed limbs and dark tunnels and muzzle flashes and blaring alarms.

He unpacked an old gas mask from a box of things. (His proper one was with his coat) 

His hands were trembling far too much to unfasten the clasps so Tim just held it to his face. Breathing too fast and shaky.

Eventually, he laid down and just cried. 

His entire body ached from exhaustion and he wanted Nastya wanted Jonny wanted Bertie most of all.

He understood why they weren't here.

Bertie was dead of course, but Jonny and Nastya took care of each other first and everyone else second. 

Nastya had an anxiety attack. Of course they weren’t here. They weren't coming out of the vents anytime soon.

So why did it hurt so much that they left him out here alone?

(Every breath he took still felt like his lungs were blistering. He didn't know if he had somehow despite the air being cycled several times breathed in more gas or if it was the panic. He didn't know.)

He didn't want to be alone.

(He wanted Nastya to hold him and tell him that everything was okay. 

Wanted Jonny to make some sort of shitty joke they would both glare at him for.

But they needed each other right now. So of course they weren’t here.

So Tim focused on breathing. On grounding himself. On the fact that he _isn’t_ on the moon there probably most likely isn’t gas in his lungs. On the bed beneath him.

When Nastya crept into his room later, with Jonny soon to follow, he just clung to her. And as always, things turned out fine. He calmed down. Jonny made him manage a weak laugh, and they were okay.

Tim knew he didn't logically need a gas mask.

But having one around his waist made for his aesthetic, and having one within reach stemmed the anxiety more than a bit.

So Tim carried a gas mask. If only to make himself feel better. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I! am! in! love! with! Gunpowder! Tim!


End file.
